Gray's Close

Today was a day of experiment. After some constuctive criticism from David77, I found myself takng photos, with the zoom option on my camera, of a cup on a table, thus getting the background out of focus. This to avoid the too fuzzy background I had on my Monday's blip achieved inexpertly with photoshop.
I also walked into town trying to shoot from the hip.The problem with my doing this is that my hips are other's knees, so I got a lot of pavement and not enough content. However I will persevere.
I had a difficult choice to make today with "the chosen one" and I've chosen Gray's Close. However if any of the big shots can give me a hint as to how to get a little more detail into the dark walls of the close entrance, I would be grateful. I don't have an SLR and so maybe I'm a bit restricted ..... or is that just an excuse ?

Having just seen this in BiG, I must say I'm not at all happy with the sharpness of the picture. I was a bit hurried as no sooner had I found this close, than 2 other snapping tourists stood at my back waiting to take the same scene.

I've been playing about with histograms and have changed the dakness of the trees and this may or not be a slightly improved image.